Vegan Baking Resources

Vegan baking is all about reverse engineering, especially when it comes to things like understanding the melt point temperatures of fats. Often I choose to examine the building blocks of a recipe so I can understand it and attempt create a decent, actually edible vegan version. Of course, you don't have to do that if you just want to play around in the kitchen and have fun. But if you really want to nail it with minimal fuss and know why you nailed it, it helps to know what building blocks you have to work with. Much like a child who knows his lego pieces well enough to the point of where he may already have a pretty good idea of the spaceship he's going to build according to the various size lego pieces he has on hand.

While working on foods such as vegan butters, shortenings, ice creams and cake frostings, I've had to endlessly fumble around the internet looking for the melting temperatures of various fats. I soon realized that assembling this information in one place could be a helpful resource for other adventurous food voyagers!

When referring to the below chart on the melting point of fats, keep in mind that melting temperature is the same as freezing temperature; it's the temperature where the fat transitions from a liquid to a solid. Trippy! Fats that are solid at room temperature are already frozen and fats that are liquid at room temperature area already melted so to speak. Monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated fat information is there to show you the health factors of various fats. Generally speaking, healthy fats have a high amount of monounsaturated fats as well as polyunsaturated fats and a low amound of saturated fats.

I always used to get so impatient when cooking grains or legumes. Instead of really looking into it, I'd just dump about equal parts millet and water into a pot, crank up the heat and come back to it later to deal with it. It never seemed to work out. It turns out that all grains and legumes really want are a little bit of attention. If you take that extra second to give them the water and heat they need, they'll sing to you and come out perfect every time, regardless of how much you're making. The time it takes to refer to the below chart will more than make up for itself compared to guessing and wasting time trying to fix the situation later. So keep it handy! I actually have a printed out copy taped to the inside of one of my cupboard door so I have no excuse.

Cooking grains and legumes simply involves exposing them to a certain amount of water and heat until they have absorbed a specific amount of water. When grains and legumes are exposed to this water and heat, their starch granules and proteins swell as they hydrate and they get softer as a result. If the starch granules absorb too much water, they can rupture and some of the starch will leak outside the grain or legume and start to thicken the water. This starch rupturing is desired in certain starch-thickened sauces utilizing such thickeners as corn starch, potato starch or tapioca starch. It's undesirable in cooked grains and legumes because they are usually preferred whole and intact.

Grains should always be rinsed before cooking. Rinsing removes any dust as well as surface starches that can contribute harsh bitter flavors. This is especially true with quinoa.

It's important to always soak legumes for 8 to 24 hours in water then drain because they contain complex sugars called oligosaccharides. These eight glucose molecule chains are unable to be broken down in the small intestine like most other foods and are instead passed into the colon where they're digested by bacteria which create intestinal gas as a byproduct. Soaking the legumes in water allows enzymes in the beans to break down the oligosaccharides into smaller sugars so they can be digested in the small intestine, resulting in less intestinal gas. Boiling legumes does not break these oligosaccharides down. Soaking will also allow them to cook faster and use less energy from your burner. Feel free to soak legumes and freeze them for later use. Just don't pre-boil them before soaking because this will deactivate the enzymes that break down the oligosaccharides, leaving them intact.

The chart below details how much water and how much time 1 cup of grains or legumes would need to cook completely at simmering temperature (about 200F or 93C) in a saucepan that's covered or semi-covered. Please note that all measurements are approximate. Happy simmering!

North Americans are the only people on earth that measure baking ingredients by volume: cups, Tablespoons and teaspoons. The rest of the world measures by weight which is significantly more accurate, having more benefit as your recipe scales up into larger quantities.

Sometimes you just don't have the right ingredients on hand that your recipe calls for or you don't feel like shelling out hard earned funds for something you're just going to use a small amount of. Walk how many blocks in the snow at 2am to get cake flour? Yeah right. This Baking Substitution page (it lives permanently under the Resources tab) is here to help and will be constantly updated as new baking substitutions are found. If you have any conversions you'd like to have listed here to help bakers around the world, don't hesitate to let me know about them!

You probably won't ever need to use self-rising flour because most recipes worth their salt call for their chemical-based leaveners such as baking powder and baking soda to be added separately. Just in case you do come across this in a recipe though, keep this conversion in mind.

Sweetener Substitutions

Agave syrup is about 40 percent sweeter than sugar. It is about as sweet as maple syrup and honey.

1 cup dark corn syrup

1 cup dark agave syrup

¾ cup light corn syrup + ¼ cup light molasses

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup amber agave syrup

1 ¼ sugar + 1/3 cup water

1 cup honey

1 1/3 cup sugar

1 cup maple syrup

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup white sugar + 1 Tablespoon molasses

Brown sugar is just white sugar that has had molasses added back to it. So why buy brown sugar like a sucker when you can just have one type of sugar on hand and add molasses as you see fit? Put the white sugar and molasses in a food processor and give a it a couple pulses to make brown sugar.

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup white sugar + 2 Tablespoons molasses

Brown sugar is just white sugar that has had molasses added back to it. So why buy brown sugar like a sucker when you can just have one type of sugar on hand and add molasses as you see fit? Put the white sugar and molasses in a food processor and give a it a couple pulses to make brown sugar.

1 cup maple syrup

1 1/3 cups sugar, increase liquid in recipe by ¼ cup

½ cup maple sugar, increase liquid in recipe by ¼ cup

When converting from sugar to maple syrup reduce your recipe's liquid by 2 to 4 Tablespoons per 1 cup of maple syrup. Maple syrup is slightly acidic, which will deactivate your baking powder if it's not neutralized by other alkaline ingredients like baking soda. This can cause cakes to have issues with rising. When converting to maple syrup in recipes where baking powder is used, add an extra ¼ to ½ teaspoon baking soda to account for maple syrup's acidity. Maple syrup caramelizes at a lower temperature which may cause problems for some recipes. In these cases, decrease oven temperature by 25F (4C) and increase baking times slightly.

These days with all the food additives used in food production, eating food can be like navigating a minefield. In order to make your vegan baking adventures easier while keeping the animals where they belong, we've posted this list of animal products (thanks PETA).

Please note that the world of food science is always changing. This means that the way food ingredients are derived changes due to technology, necessity and the efforts of animal rights activists. Depending on these factors some of the ingredients on this list may change from being animal derived to vegan or vice versa at any time.

Since obtaining this list from PETA, we've been updating it whenever we notice that a particular food product is derived from a different source. Over time, more and more of the ingredients on this list are being derived from plant sources.

Latest Comments

"These were perfect!
They are a little too spongy straight out of the oven, but after they cool down they are perfect!
I've been looking for a "go to" cupcake recipe for a while now and this is going to be it!
thanks!"

"Love this butter! Delicious taste, nicely buttery, easy to make and palm oil free (unlike most store bought stuff). I used only apple cider vinegar and didn't notice any 'vinegary' taste. So far I used it on bread, in mashed potatoes and baked vegan croissants - works great! I've tried it with different unsweetened soy milk and it worked best with alpro brand. Thank you for the recipe!"

""Vegetable" oils are yet another example of vegan health fraud that has caused massive death and disease in the human population. Which I'm sure vegans secretly delight in since they hate human beings more than they love animals. Anybody citing CSPI is a fraudster in my books."

Latest Comments

"These were perfect!
They are a little too spongy straight out of the oven, but after they cool down they are perfect!
I've been looking for a "go to" cupcake recipe for a while now and this is going to be it!
thanks!"

"Love this butter! Delicious taste, nicely buttery, easy to make and palm oil free (unlike most store bought stuff). I used only apple cider vinegar and didn't notice any 'vinegary' taste. So far I used it on bread, in mashed potatoes and baked vegan croissants - works great! I've tried it with different unsweetened soy milk and it worked best with alpro brand. Thank you for the recipe!"

""Vegetable" oils are yet another example of vegan health fraud that has caused massive death and disease in the human population. Which I'm sure vegans secretly delight in since they hate human beings more than they love animals. Anybody citing CSPI is a fraudster in my books."

The 1st of October is Vegan Baking Day. A day to spread vegan baking by sharing tasty eats with your community!

The 1st of October is Vegan Baking Day. A day to spread vegan baking by sharing tasty eats with your community!